Saturday, February 21, 2015

My just completed teenage daughter utters two phrases frequently. Language of teenagers are different and shapes the future of the language.Coming to these phrases, there is a great learning from these.

In life we are always concerned with one or many things. When any such incidence we encounter personally first utterance is : What the hell !!!However we are taught by Stephen Covey that there are two area in our life: Circle of Concerns and Circle of Influence. Expanding circle of influence will contracts our circle of concerns. When we are in our area of concern , what the hell situation will be frequent. We have two options then:1) Expand the area of influence to address the concern2) Accept the reality that you cant do anything about the situationIn both the scenario our response after what the hell should be - Ok Fine;1) Ok Fine , let me do something about it 2) Ok Fine, let me accept that I have to live with itLesson is do not remain in what the hell situations and quickly go into Ok Fine mode with any of the two options above.My daughter when she understands why of what the hell situation usually says OK Fine with 2nd option & occasionally pursues 1st option.These two phrases are very important & going hand in hand in real life situations.Whenever we are in what the hell state of mind immediately go into Ok Fine mode to remain calm or become action oriented as the case may be.Lessons in life comes from anywhere and everywhere.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

When you are working on a larger good , to keep your supporters and believers glued to you , you have to offer some quick immediate visible benefit / difference. Since larger project takes long time this is very critical to keep the supporters glued to you.

PM is in economic overhaul mode, visiting various countries which will boost our economy , making Government work harder etc etc. but for people its useless unless they see some quick benefit and life changing experience. On the contrary foreign trips and pictures work other way like PM is wasting resources in foreign tours and doesn't care about the people who voted him. Series of QUICK wins initiatives is a MUST. (This is also known as low hanging fruits.)

Secondly we want to get away from freebies culture so voters must know the impact of freebies. Economic education should be the part of Govt's economic agenda. Working to improve economy without educating people HOW it works is again like a silent Govt. ( You may be speaking all other useless things, that is not a talkative leader unless it offers some insight.) Communication is critical to get votes, communication is critical to expand voters base, communication is critical to make people know what you are doing , how you are doing and how will you achieve the goal.

We need Ministry of Citizen Communication (I & B is anyway useless) educating citizen about important issues without spending on photos of political masters. (People know the PM , they want to know how he is working to change their lives for the better.)

(PS: None of the above works and helps against Arrogance. First prerequisite for a public leader is Humbleness. Saying I am humble means nothing unless you are seen so. Entire present political class is suffering from this. Warren Buffet has recently quoted," ABC of failure for companies - Arrogance, Bureaucracy & Complacent , it is also applicable to all types of organisations.)